Minnesotaconstituent state of the United States of America. It became the 32nd state of the union on May 11, 1858. A small extension of the northern boundary makes Minnesota the most northerly of the 48 conterminous U.S. states. (This peculiar protrusion is the result of a boundary agreement with Great Britain before the area had been carefully surveyed.) Minnesota is one of the north-central states. It is bounded by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north, by Lake Superior and the state of Wisconsin to the east, and by the states of Iowa to the south and South Dakota and North Dakota to the west.

Minnesota’s thousands of rivers flow northward via the Red and Rainy rivers to Hudson Bay, eastward through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, and southward through the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Indeed, Minnesota received its name from the Dakota (Sioux) word for the Mississippi’s major tributary in the state, the Minnesota River, which means “Sky-Tinted Water.”

Minnesota consists of extensive woodlands, fertile prairies, and innumerable lakes—the last the basis for one of the state’s nicknames, “Land of 10,000 Lakes.” Minnesota actually has about 12,000 lakes, all of which are larger than 10 acres (4 hectares) in area. The nearly 5,000 square miles (13,000 square km) of inland fresh water are a dominant feature in Minnesota. Its climate is continental, with cold winters and warm summers. About one in four Minnesotans is at least partly of Scandinavian origin, but those of German descent constitute the single largest ethnic group in the state. By the end of the 20th century, services had become the dominant activity of Minnesota’s economy, surpassing farming, mining, and manufacturing, which had been the major sources of income for the state since settlement. St. Paul is the state capital, and the Twin Cities region (Minneapolis–St. Paul) is the major administrative, economic, and cultural hub of Minnesota. Area 86,939 square miles (225,171 square km). Pop. (2000) 4,919,479; (2008 2009 est.) 5,220266,393214.

Land

Relief

Minnesota’s terrain stretches from the edge of a subarctic forest to the heart of the Corn Belt. Most of the state was covered by glaciers several times, and the land’s surface was shaped by the alternate freezing, thawing, and movement of those glaciers. Prominent geomorphic reminders of this glacial activity are the rolling farmlands, thousands of lakes, steep hillsides, and flat glacial lake and outwash plains that make up Minnesota’s present-day landscape. The state’s rich prairie soils developed on the finely ground mineral materials left by the retreating glaciers. Minnesota’s elevations range from 602 feet (184 metres) above sea level at Lake Superior to 2,301 feet (701 metres) above sea level at Eagle Mountain, located about 12 miles (19 km) from the lake’s north shore.

Drainage

The majority of Minnesota’s lakes are located in the areas of glacial moraine, where glaciers deposited hills of sand and gravel. Lakes more than 100 square miles (260 square km) in area include Red Lake, Mille Lacs Lake, Leech Lake, Lake Winnibigoshish, Lake of the Woods, and Rainy Lake. The shoreline of Lake Superior, one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, forms the state’s northeastern border for some 160 miles (260 km). In northeastern Minnesota there are stream valleys and deep, clear lakes that were scoured by glaciers from the granite bedrock.

The largest glacial lake plain (more than 100,000 square miles [260,000 square km]) was formed by Lake Agassiz, which held the meltwaters as the latest glaciers retreated northward some 8,000 years ago. The southern part of the former lake bed lies along the Minnesota–North Dakota border and is known as the Red River valley. Red Lake, Lake of the Woods, and Canada’s Lake Winnipeg are all remnants of this huge body of glacial meltwater. Its southward drainage created the wide valley of the Minnesota River, the flow of which eventually reversed as ice blockage to the north melted.

Extreme southeastern Minnesota was the only part of the state to escape glaciation during the last ice age. There, streams cut their way through layers of limestone, leaving extensive caverns beneath the surface and steep, rocky bluffs rising high above the valleys.

Soils

The most fertile soils in Minnesota formed beneath the original grasslands of the south and west and are rich in organic matter and soluble minerals. Soils that formed under the original coniferous forest in northeastern Minnesota are light-coloured, acidic, and low in organic matter. Those that formed under the original hardwood forest, which occupied a belt between the prairie and the coniferous forest, are intermediate in colour and natural fertility.

Climate

Temperature variations in Minnesota occur not only seasonally but also from one part of the state to another. Southern Minnesota is hot in the summer. In the northern regions of the state, frost is possible in any month.

Average daily maximum temperatures in July range from the mid-80s F (about 29 °C) in southern Minnesota to the low 70s F (about 21 °C) along the shore of Lake Superior. Average daily January highs range from the mid-20s F (about −4 °C) in the south to about 15 °F (−9 °C) in the north; minimums are from about 5 °F (−15 °C) to about −5 °F (−21 °C). Record-breaking lows have been known to occur; in 1996 a temperature of −60 °F (−51 °C) was recorded near the northeastern city of Tower. The average frost-free periods vary from fewer than 90 days in parts of the north to more than 160 days in parts of the south.

Average annual precipitation ranges from less than 20 inches (500 mm) in the northwest to more than 30 inches (750 mm) in the southeast. Average seasonal snowfall varies from less than 40 inches (1,000 mm) in the western part of the state to more than 70 inches (1,800 mm) in the northeastern tip. Many parts of Minnesota have continuous snow cover for at least 90 days, from about mid-December to mid-March.

Plant and animal life

The state’s original vegetation may be divided into three general categories: needleleaf forest, hardwood forest, and tallgrass prairie. The needleleaf forest occupied the northeastern third of the state and included pine, spruce, and fir, with tamarack in the bog areas. A belt of hardwoods extended from southeastern Minnesota northwesterly to the Canadian border, passing through the Twin Cities and lying immediately to the south and west of the coniferous forest. The hardwood forest was known as the Big Woods and averaged some 40 to 80 miles (65 to 130 km) in width. It consisted primarily of oak, maple, and basswood, with ash, elm, cottonwood, and box elder along the stream valleys. South and west of the hardwood forest lay the tallgrass prairie. Much of the original forest and prairie has been cleared for agriculture and urbanization. Nevertheless, about one-third of Minnesota remains dominated by second-growth forest.

Mammals commonly found throughout the state include deer, foxes, raccoons, porcupines, minks, weasels, skunks, muskrats, woodchucks, and squirrels. Black bears, moose, elk, wolves, coyotes, lynx, bobcats, otters, and beavers are found almost entirely in the north. Common year-round birds include chickadees, woodpeckers, grosbeaks, nuthatches, cardinals, sparrows, and jays. Favourite migratory songbirds include robins, orioles, thrushes, meadowlarks, and red-winged blackbirds, the state’s most common bird. Migratory waterfowl include ducks, geese, gulls, coots, herons, and egrets. The common loon is the official state bird. In addition to ducks and geese, other game birds include grouse, quail, partridge, wild turkeys, and nonnative ring-necked pheasants. Important raptors are hawks, eagles, owls, and ospreys. The timber rattlesnake is found in several southeastern counties.

The walleye is designated as the state fish and is the most popular catch of anglers. Other important game fish include the northern pike, muskellunge, bass, lake trout, crappie, sunfish, and eelpout. Brown and rainbow trout thrive in many streams. The deep, cold waters of Lake Superior contain lake trout, whitefish, coho and chinook salmon, steelhead, smelt, herring, and ciscoes.

People

Population composition

Canadians and New Englanders of English, Scottish, and Scotch-Irish descent first settled in Minnesota in the early 19th century. Most were entrepreneurs and helped establish the institutions and many of the traditions that remain important in Minnesota, including the Minnesota Historical Society, the University of Minnesota, and the use of open forums for debates and town meetings for community gatherings to discuss legislative issues. Town meetings were held in several communities even before Minnesota became a state in 1858.

The first major immigrant groups in the latter half of the 19th century were Germans, Swedes, and Norwegians who logged, built railroads, farmed, and traded. German settlers dominated the push up the Mississippi, continuing into the central and south-central parts of the state. Norwegian settlers moved westward across the southern tier of counties, forming the major ethnic group in west-central Minnesota and the Red River valley. Major areas of Swedish settlement were in several counties immediately north of the Twin Cities and scattered locations in west-central and northwestern Minnesota. A substantial number of Finns settled in northeastern Minnesota, Poles in southeastern and central Minnesota, Bohemians south of the Twin Cities area, Irish across the south, French and French Canadians just north of the Twin Cities and in northwestern Minnesota, Dutch and Flemish in parts of southwestern Minnesota, Icelanders in northwestern Minnesota, and Danes, Welsh, and Swiss in scattered pockets across the state.

By 1890 most of Minnesota’s productive agricultural land had been claimed. Thus, most immigrants who arrived during the next few decades sought a livelihood in the Twin Cities area or on the iron ranges, where employment opportunities were expanding. These later immigrant groups included Italians, Slovakians, Croatians, Serbs, Greeks, Ukrainians, and Russians, as well as a continued flow of northern Europeans. The Twin Cities region in particular grew rapidly and became the state’s major melting pot. Many of the original ethnic clusters have retained a degree of homogeneity, however, especially in rural areas where few in-migrants have settled.

Since the mid-1970s, Hispanic, Asian, and African immigrants have been arriving in the state’s urban and regional centres. The Hispanic population in Minnesota tripled from the early 1990s to about 2004 and now constitutes about 4 percent of the total population. Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, and Hmong refugees immigrated to the Twin Cities area beginning in the late 1970s. In fact, Minnesota has one of the largest Hmong populations in the United States.

The Native American population in Minnesota is primarily Ojibwa (also called Chippewa or Anishinaabe), about half of whom live in the Twin Cities area; most of the remainder live on reservations in rural Minnesota. In the early 21st century more than 4 percent of the state population was African Americans, about nine-tenths of whom resided in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Each ethnic group brought its religious traditions. The people of central and south-central Minnesota are heavily Roman Catholic, reflecting their German, Polish, and Bohemian heritage. Others of German descent, as well as most of those of Scandinavian heritage, are Lutheran. In the urban areas there are several Muslim and Buddhist communities, and there is a significant Jewish community in the Twin Cities region.

Settlement patterns

To serve Minnesota’s growing agricultural, forestry, and mining activities in the 19th century, a network of towns emerged across the landscape. In the latter half of the 20th century, many of the smaller communities atrophied, while the larger communities expanded over wider areas. The fastest-growing parts of the state in the early 21st century were the Twin Cities region and the St. Cloud and Rochester metropolitan areas.

Demographic trends

Following the end of World War II, younger Minnesotans began to move to the Twin Cities area from other parts of the state or to move out of state in search of employment. This trend contributed to the shrinking size and increasing age of the state’s rural population. By the early 21st century only about one-third of Minnesotans resided in rural areas (down from about half in 1950), and about two-fifths of this group were age 65 or older. In general, population densities are greatest in the eastern and southern parts of the state and decline toward the north and west. Population growth since the late 20th century has occurred mainly among the foreign-born population.

Economy

The economic growth of early Minnesota was related closely to the exploitation of its primary natural resources—soils, iron ore, and timber—which in turn stimulated the growth of such ancillary activities as railroad building, natural resource processing, and agricultural implement manufacturing. During the late 1960s and early ’70s these began to decline, and service-related industries started to flourish. Agriculture, however, remains one of Minnesota’s major industries.

Agriculture, forestry, and fishing

Virtually all of Minnesota’s prairies had been cultivated by the turn of the 20th century. The coniferous forestlands, mostly cut by 1920, have become covered again by aspen, birch, and jack pine. Much of the Big Woods was cleared for crops and pasture, but Minnesota reached its peak in cultivated farmland in 1945. Since then the agricultural frontier retreated, and farms were abandoned in the less fertile areas in north-central and northeastern Minnesota, where soils are thin and acidic. The Big Woods area became primarily a dairying centre. Within about 100 miles (160 km) of the Twin Cities, dairying continues, but beyond that it has largely disappeared because of declining profitability. The prairie areas of southern and southwestern Minnesota support characteristically Corn Belt crops (corn [maize] and soybeans) and livestock.

Minnesota’s most valuable and productive farmland lies across the southern quarter of the state, mostly an area of dark, fertile prairie soils and hot, humid summer weather, where corn and soybeans are the major cash crops. Small grains and specialty crops thrive in the Red River valley, where the growing season is shorter and the humidity is lower than in southern Minnesota. Major crops cultivated there are wheat, hay, sugar beets, and barley.

Dairying dominates the hilly Big Woods region from southeastern to west-central Minnesota. Milk and milk products are the major sources of farm income in this region, with feed crops being important. Soybeans and potatoes are grown as supplemental cash crops. Large-scale turkey production is important in several localities.

The lumbering industry played an important part in the early economy of the state but declined rapidly after 1900, because the pine forests were depleted and much of the natural regrowth of aspen and birch had limited commercial value. In the latter half of the 20th century, however, Minnesota’s forest industry was revitalized with the growth of the wood pulp and waferboard industries. Pine, balsam, and spruce are harvested for pulpwood, while aspen, once considered a “weed” tree, has become the preferred species for waferboard manufacturing and accounts for about seven-tenths of the commercially harvested wood in Minnesota.

Beginning in the late 19th century, commercial fishing thrived in Minnesota, especially in Lake Superior, but a reduced fish population (caused by overfishing and pollution) led to its decline in the late 20th century. Still, Lake Superior trout and whitefish are available in modest volume, and herring is abundant but less popular. Fishing of walleyed pike on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in north-central Minnesota was banned in 1995, but the ban was lifted a decade later following a restocking effort. Sport fishing is popular in the state’s major streams and rivers.

Resources and power

Iron ore accounts for more than nine-tenths of the value of all minerals produced in Minnesota. The Mesabi Range, the largest of three iron ranges in the state, began production in 1892 and at its peak produced one-fourth of the world’s iron ore. By the late 1950s, however, most of the high-grade natural ores of the Mesabi had been depleted. A process was developed at the University of Minnesota for extracting iron from the abundant but low-grade taconite rock. To encourage the heavy capital investment required for taconite processing, Minnesota voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1964 that guaranteed the taconite industry a tax-free period of 25 years. This resulted in a brief revitalization of the iron ore industry in Minnesota. By the 1980s, however, low-cost foreign steel reduced U.S. steel production, and lower-cost foreign ores began replacing Minnesota taconite in American steel mills. Taconite mining operations are still active, though, and there are several of these mines on the Mesabi Range.

Other mining activities in Minnesota include granite and limestone quarrying and sand and gravel extraction. There are no coal, oil, or natural gas resources in Minnesota, and geologic formations are such that the discovery of these minerals is highly unlikely. The state has oil refineries in the Twin Cities area, however, to process crude oil imported from Canada. Several natural gas pipelines also run from Canada and from other parts of the Midwest into Minnesota. Large deposits of low-grade copper-nickel, with traces of cobalt, platinum, palladium, and gold, exist in the Duluth Complex, a part of the ancient volcanic bedrock just north of Lake Superior, but they have not been exploited because of environmental concerns.

Coal-fired power plants account for the generation of about two-thirds of Minnesota’s electricity, while much of the remainder is produced by nuclear power plants near the Twin Cities. Wind farms are common, and turbines are located mainly in the southwest of the state. Minnesota is a major producer of ethanol, and many corn-based production plants are located in the southern part of the state. By law, Minnesota is required to use gasoline blended with ethanol, and at the beginning of the 21st century the state had more refueling stations that used gasoline containing up to 85 percent ethanol (E85) than any other U.S. state.

Manufacturing

Minnesota’s earliest industries included the manufacture of agricultural implements, machinery, tools, and hardware. From the 1880s to about 1920, Minneapolis was known as “the mill city,” producing more flour than any other city in the world, but it was surpassed after 1920 by Buffalo, N.Y., because of its proximity to eastern markets. While flour is no longer produced in Minneapolis, the major milling companies—now major consumer-products firms—retain their headquarters there. For example, the Twin Cities area is home to General Mills, Inc., one of the largest food-service manufacturers in the world. Aside from foodstuffs, some of the Minnesota’s present-day manufactures include chemicals, medical electronic devices, computer software, and recreational equipment. One of the state’s most prominent economic success stories is that of the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company (3M Company), which was established in 1902 in the town of Two Harbors, on Lake Superior. The company quickly shifted its focus from mining to the manufacture of sandpaper and eventually prospered as the result of its creation and marketing of a wide range of products, including adhesive tape.

Services and labour

About three-fourths of Minnesotans are employed in the service industry. Since the late 1990s the financial, insurance, health care, high-technology, and tourism sectors have experienced growth in the Twin Cities and other urban areas. One of the state’s major tourist destinations is the Mall of America, the largest shopping mall in the country, located in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington. Minnesota is the birthplace of the Target chain of discount merchandise stores; it originated as a dry goods establishment in downtown Minneapolis in 1902. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed in 1988 to generate revenue and create jobs in Minnesota’s tribal communities. Since that time, gambling has been a major source of income for the state.

Transportation

Minnesota’s transportation infrastructure is centred on the Twin Cities area. Regional and transcontinental rail and highway systems radiate outward from the Twin Cities. The rail system of northeastern Minnesota carries iron ore and taconite products for transshipment by boat at the Lake Superior ports of Duluth and Superior, Wis. Wheat from the Dakotas and Montana also has been an important product transshipped from rail to boat at Duluth.

Since the opening of the Great Lakes waterway to ocean vessels in 1959, products of the Upper Midwest have been carried directly to locations throughout the world. River transportation was the first important mode for the movement of both passengers and goods in many parts of the state. Barges on the Mississippi carry bulk products to and from the major inland ports at St. Paul and Minneapolis. Carried upstream are such bulk products as coal, oil, and salt; grain, sand, and gravel are transported downstream.

The Twin Cities area, served by several commercial airlines, is also the air hub of the Upper Midwest. The Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport is supplemented by a satellite network of additional airports around the state.

Government and society

Constitutional framework

Minnesota’s first state constitution was adopted in 1857 and ratified by Congress at the time of statehood in 1858. In 1974 it was revised, and it has been amended several times. The constitution provides for an executive branch comprising a governor, a lieutenant governor, a secretary of state, an auditor, a treasurer, and an attorney general. These six state officials are all elected by statewide ballot for four-year terms. There are more than 100 administrative departments and independent agencies, boards, commissions, and other bodies.

The state’s bicameral legislature consists of a 67-member Senate and a 134-member House of Representatives that meet in regular session in odd-numbered years. Senators are elected to four-year terms, and representatives serve two-year terms.

Three levels of courts constitute the Minnesota judicial system: district (county) courts, the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court. Trial court divisions include conciliation, juvenile, probate, criminal, civil, and family courts. District court judges and the seven Supreme Court justices are appointed by the governor and can be reelected to six-year terms on a nonpartisan ballot.

Counties and municipalities provide most of the local governmental services, but townships assume some authority for planning and zoning and for maintenance of public works, parks, and hospitals. Special districts have been established to provide for waste management, water supply, fire protection, parks, airports, soil and water conservation, and other interjurisdictional needs.

The Twin Cities Metropolitan Council, the members of which are appointed by the governor, is responsible for the development of certain areawide services that local government is unable to provide, including sewage and water systems, transportation, regional parks, and major land uses. It plays a coordinating and regulatory role among the local governmental jurisdictions within the counties of the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area.

Minnesota politics has been characterized by recurring waves of protest and reform, which spawned such national groups as the Granger and Greenback movements, the Antimonopolists, the Farmers’ Alliance, the Populist and Prohibition parties, and the Nonpartisan League. Each of these movements brought about social reforms and influenced the major political parties. The two major Minnesota parties of the late 20th and early 21st centuries—the Democratic–Farmer–Labor (DFL) Party and the Republican Party—are amalgams from this tradition. The DFL Party was formed in 1944 by the more traditional Democrats and the reformist Farmer–Labor Party, founded in 1918. The state’s Republican Party was established in 1855 in an effort to attract more of the substantial, but diverse, independent vote in Minnesota.

The political environment emerged from the traditions of the original New Englanders, who brought their town-meeting form of government to this new frontier. That foundation was reinforced by the Scandinavian and German immigrants, with their ambition and high regard for education. Government has always been widely accepted as the legitimate means for public decision making in Minnesota, and business has played an important role as a strong participant in public decisions.

The traditions of citizen involvement can be seen in the many neighbourhood and community organizations and ad hoc issue-related groups in the state. It has also been reflected in the relatively large number of Minnesotans of national political prominence, including onetime governor Harold Stassen, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination nine times between 1948 and 1992; former U.S. senators and vice presidents Hubert H. Humphrey and Walter Mondale, each of whom was also the Democratic Party’s candidate for president (in 1968 and 1984, respectively); Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, who ran for the presidency four times between 1968 and 1992; and Sen. Paul Wellstone, a liberal champion of the disadvantaged in the 1990s and early 21st century, whose constituency often seemed to extend beyond the bounds of the state. The last four were all active and influential members of the DFL Party. Minnesota has been a leader in national movements, such as those seeking to guarantee the rights of women, homosexuals, and Native Americans. The state’s political tradition also included the populist governorship of Jesse Ventura (1999–2003), a onetime professional wrestler elected on the Reform Party ticket, as well as Keith Ellison, who in 2006 became the first African American to represent the state in the U.S. Congress and the first Muslim ever elected to the House of Representatives.

Minnesota’s political tradition has produced diverse voting trends. At the gubernatorial level Republicans have dominated, but at the presidential level Minnesota has mostly supported Democratic candidates. Indeed, from 1932 to 2008 the state voted for Republican presidential candidates only three times (1952, 1956, 1972). Still, despite its Democratic leanings in presidential elections, the state is often considered a battleground, particularly as many of the contests have been won only narrowly.

Health and welfare

Minnesota ranks high among the states in the quality of health and welfare services. Its high standard of general medical services, its extensive children’s health and welfare programs, and its innovative approaches to health maintenance, drug- and alcohol-abuse treatment, and care for the elderly have all been praised.

The Twin Cities and Rochester serve as national health care centres. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester has served patients from around the world since the late 19th century. The University of Minnesota Medical Center at Fairview, in the Twin Cities area, has been a pioneer in medical research, while numerous hospitals across the state provide an effective network of medical care.

Education

School districts in Minnesota vary widely in size and resources, with the larger and wealthier districts generally located in the major urban centres. Small rural school districts have often consolidated or collaborated in order to provide a full range of curriculum opportunities and essential services. More than half of local school district revenues generally come from the state, with support ranging widely, based on local needs. Minnesota ranks among the top states in the proportion of its students graduating from high school, in standard test scores for high school graduates, and in the proportion of students attending higher educational institutions.

The University of Minnesota (1851) is the state’s land-grant university and a premier research institution. Its main campus is in Minneapolis; smaller campuses are in Crookston, Duluth, Morris, and Rochester. Separate from the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system comprises more than 30 institutions, including community, technical, and tribal colleges, as well as state universities. There are numerous private liberal arts colleges in Minnesota, including Carleton College (1866) and St. Olaf College (1874) in Northfield; St. Catherine University (formerly the College of St. Catherine; 1905), Hamline University (1854), and Macalester College (1874) in St. Paul; Gustavus Adolphus College (1862) in St. Peter; and partner schools College of St. Benedict (1887) in St. Joseph for women and St. John’s University (1857) in Collegeville for men. With more than 10,000 students, the University of St. Thomas (1885), in St. Paul, is Minnesota’s largest private university.

Cultural life

Minnesota’s ethnic diversity is reflected in the state’s cultural life. Fairs and festivals celebrating the different ethnicities are held throughout the year. Heritage Fest in New Ulm is a tribute to German culture. A harvest festival in New Prague celebrates that town’s Czech roots. The Minnesota Scottish Fair and Highland Games is held each year in Farmington. Native Americans hold periodic powwows; an annual (September) powwow at Mankato attracts many spectators. Each April the Festival of Nations is held in St. Paul.

The arts

The Minnesota State Arts Board is the major promoter and funder of the arts in the state. One of the state’s best-known artists is Seth Eastman (1808–75), known for his watercolour works of the Minnesota frontier done while he was stationed at Fort Snelling, the site of the first permanent settlement by non-Native Americans in Minnesota. Also significant is sculptor Paul Manship (1885–1966) from St. Paul, who is remembered for his many public commissions. Ojibwa artist George Morrison (1919–2000) of Chippewa City created wood collages and abstract paintings, many of which are part of the collection at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul.

Mythical lumberjack Paul Bunyan, a figure who originated in oral folklore, was introduced to a general audience through advertising pamphlets for the Minneapolis-based Red River Lumber Company in the early 20th century. The pamphlets influenced author Esther Shephard, a Minnesota native, who wrote Paul Bunyan (1924), a work that helped to popularize the hero throughout the country.

Many prominent literary figures have hailed from Minnesota. The most celebrated are Sinclair Lewis, whose novel Main Street (1920) is a satirical portrait of small-town provincialism modeled on his hometown of Sauk Centre, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose The Great Gatsby (1925) is narrated by Nick Carraway—like Fitzgerald—an Ivy League-educated Minnesotan who relocates to the East Coast. Minnesota’s pioneer days are remembered in the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder and O.E. Rölvaag. Perhaps the most famous contemporary voice of Minnesota is radio personality and humorist Garrison Keillor, the longtime host of Minnesota Public Radio’s A Prairie Home Companion. Often compared with Mark Twain, Keillor is also the author of a number of books, including Lake Wobegon Days, about the fictional sleepy Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, news from which is the subject of the weekly monologue by Keillor and one of the highlights of A Prairie Home Companion. Novelist and short-story writer Charles Baxter is another prominent contemporary author with Minnesota roots. Charles Schulz, creator of the timeless and widely read comic-strip series “Peanuts,” was a Minneapolis native.

Folk and rock music icon Bob Dylan grew up in Hibbing, in Minnesota’s North Country, and cut his teeth as a folksinger in the early 1960s in Dinkytown, the bohemian quarter of Minneapolis, on the edge of the University of Minnesota, which Dylan briefly attended. Koerner, Ray & Glover—the seminal blues-folk trio comprising “Spider” John Koerner, Dave Ray, and Tony Glover—was part of the same scene. Later in the ’60s the Twin Cities became the base for guitar virtuoso Leo Kottke. Another pivotal figure in the history of popular music, Prince, is a native of Minneapolis. His Paisley Park Studios became an important nexus of the thriving local music scene in the 1980s that produced the Replacements, Husker Du, Soul Asylum, Peter Himmelman, Trip Shakespeare, the Suburbs, and the Jayhawks, among other prominent performers.

Cultural institutions

Whereas most of Minnesota is the outdoor playground for the state, the Twin Cities area serves as the centre of cultural institutions. The best-known musical organizations are the Minnesota Orchestra, founded in 1903 as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra; the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; and the Minnesota Opera Company. Civic orchestras and colleges and universities throughout the state make substantial contributions to the arts within their communities and regions.

The Twin Cities area has several resident professional theatres. Best known is the Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963. The Children’s Theatre Company is nationally recognized. Minnesota Dance Theatre & The Dance Institute is the most prominent resident dance company in the Twin Cities.

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Walker Art Center, the University of Minnesota’s Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, and the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul are among the most important art museums in the state. Other major museums are the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Bell Museum of Natural History, the Minnesota Historical Society, the American Swedish Institute, the Mill City Museum, and the Planetarium of the Minneapolis Public Library, all of which are in Minneapolis. The Minnesota Zoo is located in Apple Valley, south of the Twin Cities.

Sports and recreation

Although Minnesota has deep traditions in several team sports, ice hockey’s pride of place in the “State of Hockey” is encapsulated in the anthem of the Twin Cities’ National Hockey League (NHL) franchise, the Wild, notably in the lines:

This sport was hereBefore we cameIt will be here when we’re goneThe game’s in our bloodAnd our blood’s in the gameLay us down underA frozen pond.

From its inception in 2000, the Wild (successor to Minnesota’s first NHL franchise, the North Stars [1967–93], which relocated to Dallas) has packed its St. Paul arena. Hockey arrived in Minnesota from Canada in the late 1880s; as a consequence of Canada’s lack of a transcontinental railway, rail routes from western Canada swung down through Minnesota and other parts of the American Midwest before heading northeastward to Toronto. Canadian travelers and railroad workers took hockey with them, introducing the game to Minnesotans along the way. One of the state’s earliest hotbeds of hockey was the Iron Range, to which mine owners brought professional players for the entertainment of the miners, and the Range town of Eveleth is the home of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame Museum (founded in 1973). Minnesotans have long been a major presence on the U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team—never more so than in 1980, when the “Miracle on Ice” team defeated the Soviets and went on to win Olympic gold at the Lake Placid Winter Games; 11 members of the team hailed from Minnesota, as did the team’s coach, Herb Brooks, who also had led the University of Minnesota team to three National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships in the 1970s. In addition to the University of Minnesota team, which remains a traditional power, teams from State Cloud State, Minnesota State, Bemidji State, and the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) compete in Division I men’s hockey. UMD’s women’s team has won several national championships.

Fans of gridiron football in Minnesota focus primarily on the Minneapolis-based Vikings of the National Football League (NFL), who made four trips to the Super Bowl in the 1970s—though without winning. The University of Minnesota, a member of the Big Ten Conference, has its own rich football history, which reaches back to its glory years in the 1930s and ’40s, when it won five national championships, and encompasses several of college football’s best-known annual trophy games, including the contests for the Little Brown Jug (with the University of Michigan), the Floyd of Rosedale (with the University of Iowa), and Paul Bunyan’s Axe (with the University of Wisconsin). Both St. John’s and Winona State universities have long enjoyed significant football success in the NCAA’s Division III and the Football Championship Subdivision, respectively.

The first intercollegiate basketball game (though not with five players on a side) was played on Feb. 9, 1895, between Hamline University and the University of Minnesota, a consequence of the presence of James Naismith, who had moved to the Twin Cities shortly after inventing the game. Professional basketball’s first great big man, George Mikan, starred for the Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), before the franchise left Minneapolis for Los Angeles in 1960. Since 1989 Minneapolis has been the home of the NBA’s Timberwolves and since 1999 the home of the Lynx of the Women’s NBA.

Baseball began to be played in Minnesota not long after the American Civil War (1861–65), with the first fully professional league beginning in 1884. Before Major League Baseball came to the Twin Cities area in 1961 with the relocation of the Washington Senators as the Twins, minor league baseball had been prominent in the state, especially in Minneapolis and St. Paul, which each had storied teams in the American Association. The Twins, who played in suburban Bloomington before taking up residence in the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis, won the World Series in 1987 and 1991. Since 1993 the St. Paul Saints, an independent town-based minor league team, have been a popular alternative to the Twins.

Among those well-known athletes who hailed from Minnesota are Hall of Fame baseball players Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor, football player Bronko Nagurski, football player and coach Bud Wilkinson, basketball player Kevin McHale, and golfer Patty Berg.

Notwithstanding Minnesota’s early and harsh winters, many activities in the state are oriented toward the outdoors, including swimming, boating, canoeing, camping, hunting, and fishing. Minnesota has dozens of state parks and forests, as well as Voyageurs National Park and Superior and Chippewa national forests. Popular winter sports include downhill and cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, and ice fishing. St. Paul celebrates winter with its annual Winter Carnival, while Minneapolis celebrates summer with its Aquatennial.

Media and publishing

Minnesota’s major newspapers include the Pioneer Press and Star Tribune in the Twin Cities, Duluth News Tribune, St. Cloud Times, and Rochester Post-Bulletin. Minnesota Public Radio, with its headquarters in St. Paul, started as a classical music station in 1967 and is now one of the country’s largest producers of public radio programs. The Little Sandy Review, cofounded in Minneapolis in 1961 by music critics Paul Nelson and Jon Pankake, was one of the first publications to treat folk music seriously; although it was short-lived and never widely distributed, it was an important early influence on magazines dedicated to popular music.